Well, it's just proof from another angle. It's also interesting to watch yet another martial-arts guy with obvious access to the same basic ki/qi/jin/kokyu skills. The real question in my mind when I saw this yet-another example on YouTube was "just how the hell many people in Japan have these skills that we don't know about?" and "how many actually had these skills in the old days?"...
snip ...and then this current one of Nishikido's and other similar ones, I knew we were in trouble.

Trouble? To whom?
I knew it was there. Many others in DR know its there. Others in different arts know they have some methods or components of internal training. I think the real trouble is those who cannot or will not teach it.
Other than that even with those who do, they may not know themselves just what depth or to what extent their arts have it compared to others if they haven't gone out and compared with others. Some are- others might not even care. Their loss.
At any rate all of this was never and is no surprise to "everyone."

Nothing I have seen so far will compare to people who train these things extensively and as a separate and definitive body of work. In that sense, no, I don't think they are as strong and well developed as many may think they are. Case in point is that you can stop the best DR men in the world who may have decades of training in Daito ryu with the aiki you can learn in five years or so if you train in certain ways to do so.
It just depends on how you train and what you train. I said this right here four years ago about a short term learning curve that could challange aikido shihan not only in the use of aiki, but in ability to fight. We all know how that turned out.
Here now I have new people who have been training for just a year and their own teachers are asking "What in thee hell they are doing to make that aiki effect?"
So I would underscore specific body training over art specific training any day of the week.
But I'd be delighted to be surprised.

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This stuff is much more widely spread in Japan than we thought. Donn Draeger's vague misunderstandings about how much ki and kiai, etc., was in Japan were probably, in my opinion, because he wasn't shown how to do these things. He, like most of us, was under the impression that there wasn't much there.

Draeger studied with Wang Chu Shin for 2-3 years and needed no convincing-of these things- as he felt and saw Wang do things...er...up close and personal- that he could not explain and he obviously wanted. From what I was told, No, he didn't ever really get it. But a friend of his who trained with him under Wang could do some interesting things.

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Heck.... there seems to be plenty there, it's just that only a few are shown. Again, Ellis would be the one to talk about that.

Uhm...okay
There is so much there that Ellis and many others missed and didn't have the slightest inkling of-this according to his own written words and discussions- that all due respect to him-I don't think Ellis would ever consider himself a source on this topic. Hell with that..I know he wouldn't He would cringe at that.

I think most everyone would cringe at being considered a source or some sort of expert. Ouch!
So here again, I'd seriously caution anyone to believe anyone who claims they know this material no matter wat they say.It still needs to be felt in those who think they know it to any degree. And that includes those who can write about in exquisite detail. You like to say pooh. I say pooh to some who write on lists with precision and have had their descriptions…approved by the group. Who absolutely stunk up the place in person. IHTBF, all the way.

As far as Japan goes it is everywhere. I am less concerned with that, I am more concerned with if their students got to learn it-as a group.

The reason I brought up the Fighting spirit of Japan years ago (Ellis and I playfully argue over who cited it first-I did ) was that an old judoka showed me some things he had learned at the kodokan, and since this fellow was also a Daito ryu teacher it was fascinating to talk about some surprising comparisons. No, he didn't consider it aiki, but it was all jin skills with the use of ground paths and non-dedicated weight transfer in empty-gi work. So I...cough...had a *reason* cough...to go looking in Judo books, and there it was, and surprisingly with a tie-in to Judo and aikijujutsu of all things.
Next up was a Japanese sho-sho ryu teacher who had atemi, and ate waza, that was all jin skills as well. He could nail you, but trying to get in to throw him just wasn't going to happen. His students? All muscle.

Last, let's not forget that Arks little old Japanese man was a Yagyu shingen guy who showed him a series of solo training exercises for internal power.

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The point is that all this stuff is actually alive and well in Japan... the West is just way behind grasping this fact.

So of course its alive in Japan. I just think percentage wise it --is- more dead than alive. That may be on purpose or it may be the way it always was for the simple reason that folks were not shown, or they didn't get it or a combination of the two. I have seen those with power with great difficulty in articulating what to do. There is so much that is taught by practice and feel and you either get it or you don't. Couple that with things being gokui and you're just not going to find out unless you have some friendships in the right places.
Or want to go train in a classical art for long time. Either that or go find someone who has it and who is able to teach it in an articulate and clear fashion.
Here now, I balance these things I saw, trained in and felt with thers with what I know now and realize they were missing so much in the way they moved. They knew component and parts. Maybe we all do.

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The interesting thing is that the total skills of these things take years to fully develop, so watching the very sluggish attitude of "someday I'm going to take a weekend workshop on this stuff and add it to my already-fine martial arts" is pretty interesting. Gives me the grins.